You may be right that the problem lies in the hub, but given the shipping cost I would first exhaust the cpu and receiver as culprits. How to ask Saris? Call their customer service number. You should have the replacement parts on the way the day you call. I did. It's a small company; it's not like calling GM.kmavm said:
Ditto on everything RDO has said. I know it's frustrating in the heat of the issue; I'm one who often complains the earliest and the loudest, so I can relate. However, once you get this resolved, you find the PT a very useful, low-maintenance training tool. Power measuring devices for the bike are still in their infancy, but work great for the most part. Take a deep breath, get over this hump, and you'll be a happy camper.RapDaddyo said:
I guess. There certainly seem to be people using these things. I just can't explain this latest failure mode: I changed nothing! I put a working setup to bed, and woke up to a more complete failure than I've seen so far! What could have happened? The more troubling thought is, whatever happened, (sudden damage to the receiver, wiring, CPU mount, what have you) why won't it keep happening again?wattsup? said:
The problem is that the hub batteries lose power in the cold. My SL seems ok at or above 25F, which looks like its threshold, because on rides around 21-23F it dies after about 15-30 minutes. Saris suggests that 30F is the minimum, so perhaps there is some variability due to age of batteries. (If your bike lives in the garage like mine, the ambient garage temperature probably also plays a part.) Also as it gets colder the SL seems more sensitive to having the chain/seat stay receiver (wherever you have it mounted) exactly parallel and close to the hub. Of course, below 20F my SL gets happier, since that's when I switch to the indoor trainer. And in passing, while I wish RDO a wonderful holiday season, I curse his comments about Vegas weather!wattsup? said:
The receiver is certainly one candidate. On another thread, somebody posted that they can pick up the wireless hub transmission on their stereo. I have the frequency range around here somewhere. I'll try to find it. In the meantime, why don't you bring your bike inside and turn the cranks with the hub near a stereo or radio. You might be able to pick up the hub transmission.kmavm said:
kmavm said:
Gone for hours? Gone even before you have turned a single pedal, still in the garage? I thought the classic "vibration-induced drop" happened in the middle of the ride, and was intermittent (comes and goes). Mine is dead, dead, dead, even spinning the wheel in the stand.JIM WV said:
But, it is possible that the problem lies in the receiver rather than the hub. I'd like to find a cheap device that could be used to pick up the hub transmission frequency. That would allow you (or me or anyone with an SL) to isolate the break in the communication path from the hub to the receiver to the computer. I still think if it were mine I would get Saris to send me a new receiver and computer. Of course, if you have a friend with an SL, you can also put your hub on his bike and test it and vice versa with his wheel on your bike. BTW, I assume you've ruled out the possibility that one or the other of the two battery brackets didn't somehow get out of position after your Christmas Eve ride. Now that you're an expert at removing the hub cover, that would be easy to check.kmavm said:
I've seen neither head nor tail of Saris' much vaunted "excellent" customer service. I left a message on the "open mailbox" at the Saris customer support 877 message, and sent three emails to "[email protected]", the email contact given in the manual. Believe me, I'd love to have them help me out here. They're just letting me twist in the wind, thus far.RapDaddyo said:
I replaced the CPU battery (even though the CPU looked fine, picked up HR and cadence, etc.) and re-replaced the hub batteries, to no effect.
kmavm said:
Wow, that sure sounds familiar... Thanks for the words of encouragement and support. I look forward to actually being able to train with this tool. While the 10 hours or so I've accumulated with it actually working aren't enough to have "made a difference" per se, they've given me just enough of a peek of what's possible to make it hard to go back to "training blind."JIM WV said:
kmavm said:When it's working well, I absolutely love my new powertap SL. However, I'm having a heck of a time keeping it working.
My failure mode doesn't seem similar to other problems I've seen posted about. My powertap works great, and then goes into a "coma" suddenly, and refuses to emerge.
On two rides so far, after about 2 hours of mostly flawless functioning, the CPU briefly drops a few times. Then, within a few minutes, the CPU goes into "---" mode, and just CANNOT be coaxed out. I've gotten off the bike, fiddled with the receiver, taken the CPU out of its cradle to try to clear any dirt or water that may have pooled around the electrical contacts, wiped dirt off the wireless receiver and carbon fiber windows on the hub. Nothing helps. My powertap has become a $1000 heart rate monitor.
The failure mode just doesn't make sense to me. The things that should cause a total failure of signal (low batteries in either the CPU or the hub, a bad electrical connection from the CPU to the receiver, or a poorly mounted receiver) shouldn't fail suddenly, and catastrophically, two hours into a ride. What am I overlooking?
These last few days have been somewhat moist. Not necessarily drenching wet, though I've ridden through at least one gully-washer. One ride, which I'm not counting among these "coma" rides, I was able to fix the symptom by taking the CPU off its cradle and drying the contacts. My impression was that the wet weather problem had mostly been solved with the SL hub.
Which square in the powertap troubleshooting board game should I jump to next? Replace the CPU batteries? The hub batteries? Wrap tin foil around my chainstays while I hold down the "mode" button for 15 minutes and do the hokey pokey? What? Someone give me hope that I'll be able to use this equipment; I fully believe in its promise, but thus far the flakiness level is so high that I'm frankly amazed a business would dare sell these things.
So, another iteration of replacing the batteries seemed to work. I can't explain why, and I still don't understand why the hub seemed to lose contact with this plane of physical reality after my first attempt at changing batteries. However, for now, I'm a happy camper. I even gathered data from my complete meltdown at San Bruno Mtn. on New Year's!wattsup? said:
I have three non-SL hubs ( makes it trivial to troubleshoot issues) and I've had a hub die after a ride was over. I think it was because water worked it's way into the hub and then killed the batteries. This last week I had to replace the batteries because water got in there during a three hour ride in the rain and after I aired it out overnight the wheel was good to go the next day. Also, not all batteries are good out of the box. A battery tester is about ten bucks at Radio Shack.kmavm said:
